Prompted by Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees recent declaration that manking only stood a 50:50 chance of surviving the century the Guardian has an excellent article look at the main risks to humanity, and ranking by likelihood to happen in the next 70 years, and their impact if they do (they've obviously been on a risk management course!). The risks are:
- Climate Change: High/6
- Telomere erosion: Low/8
- Viral Pandemic: Very High/3
- Terrorism: Very High/2
- Nuclear War: Low/8
- Meteorite: Medium/5
- Robot takeover: High/8
- Cosmic ray blast: Low/4
- Super Volcanoes: Very High/7
- Black Hole: Exceedingly low/10
So looks like its a tie between Robots and Supervolcanoes. Looks like the Singularity is as close as we thought.
Leave a comment